Kevin Williamson
It is mystifying that free trade remains a policy without a constituency, when there are so many natural constituencies for it — people who live in houses for example. …Join me for a trip down memory lane back to the heady days of 2017, when, under the very best thinking brought to you by… our government decided that one of the biggest and more urgent problems facing Americans was a splendid supply of inexpensive lumber — specifically, that those wily, inscrutable, nefarious . . . Canadians were selling the stuff too cheap in U.S. markets, thereby undercutting the critical economic position of — oh, I don’t know, Paul Bunyan, I guess.
…Even with lumber prices at a record high, the Biden administration is continuing the Trump administration’s policy of imposing a punitive sales tax on American consumers to punish them for buying Canadian lumber. …It’s pure special-interest politics. …Americans do not need to be protected from low prices and abundance, from high-quality building supplies provided at reasonable rates. Low prices and abundance: That is a policy that might appeal to some people. Those who live in houses and apartments, for instance.
